


Show Me The Way To Come Home

by harrythe



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 06:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18751156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrythe/pseuds/harrythe
Summary: Their relationship, if he could even call it that, is completely and utterly decimated, past the point of no return, became that way the moment Guerin slept with Maria. They’re broken, and bloody, and bruised, fighting against a lifetime of flight instincts. And he knows that it’s not fair for him to feel this way, after he spent so long telling him they can never be anything more than friends, but he can’t help standing amongst the ruins, the hollowed out shell of what was, yelling that Guerin is his family, that Guerin is his home, spitting Guerin’s own words about not looking away back at him. And maybe they’re too far gone, the interest in pursuing something with Maria the signal that Guerin is finally moving on, finally letting go of the past, but if Alex has to cocoon himself in their love, put it on like battle armor for who they could be, he will. Because Michael is his family. Michael is his home.





	Show Me The Way To Come Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exhibit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exhibit/gifts), [Beautifulsoulheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beautifulsoulheart/gifts).



> Listen, I’ve been an Alex Manes stan since “Every time you look at me, I’m seventeen again”, and let me tell you, my heart ached after 1x12 and 1x13, and yeah, Maria might be what Michael needs right now, but I will forever ship the earth-shattering, crash-landing, all consuming love he has for Alex. So, here you go. 
> 
> Also, Friendiversary 2019, which is a celebration of the day Ronie and I first became friends, was about a week ago, so this is for that, and also Amber's birthday was last week, and since her birthday fic is nowhere close to being finished, they both get this, so bless you both, I love you both, have some angst, because that's apparently what we do when it comes to celebrating our friendship.

When he was a child in school, he heard about how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. After eating their fill, the caterpillar surrounds itself inside the chrysalis, in a place where it can be safe and warm. After entering the chrysalis, the caterpillar’s body begins to dissolve, to break down, before it can rebuild into something new, completely cocooned in safety. In a home. And sometimes it doesn’t make it to the butterfly stage, sometimes the chrysalis is destroyed, broke open leaving the half-formed butterfly broken and bleeding on the floor, but sometimes, with patience, and great care, the cocoon cracks open, and a butterfly emerges.

And it’s not until he’s standing in front of Michael Guerin, pleading with him to run, to find safety, does he even begin to understand what that’s like. For so long, he’s been running, running from who he is, running from who they could be. And it had worked, for a brief amount of time. He’d been able to stay away, to try to become some semblance of the person his father wanted him to be. But in the end, as he always does, Guerin had pulled him back. They’ve been drawn together from the first time he heard Guerin play that guitar all the way back in high school. And they may have lost a piece of themselves, when it was violently taken away from them, but there’s a reason they were eventually drawn back together. A reason for them to slowly knit together and heal.

Their relationship, if he could even call it that, is completely and utterly decimated, past the point of no return, became that way the moment Guerin slept with Maria. They’re broken, and bloody, and bruised, fighting against a lifetime of flight instincts. And he knows that it’s not fair for him to feel this way, after he spent so long telling him they can never be anything more than friends, but he can’t help standing amongst the ruins, the hollowed out shell of what was, yelling that Guerin is his family, that Guerin is his home, spitting Guerin’s own words about not looking away back at him. And maybe they’re too far gone, the interest in pursuing something with Maria the signal that Guerin is finally moving on, finally letting go of the past, but if Alex has to cocoon himself in their love, put it on like battle armor for who they could be, he will. Because Michael is his family. Michael is his home.

And it breaks him to hear Guerin yell that he doesn’t love him, even though he knows it’s not true, knows it deep down inside his bones. It breaks him in all new sorts of ways, knowing that Guerin is willing to say anything to get him to go, to escape before it’s too late. His final act of protection, his supposed final act of love. But he won’t leave, not again. He’s no more willing to survive on this planet without Guerin, than Guerin is willing to do whatever takes to save him. What they have has become so much bigger, so much stronger, than he ever would have thought back in high school.

And yeah, maybe they’re holding onto the past, desperately grasping at the straws of what was, and what could have been, but Alex can’t let go, won’t let go. Because he meant what he said, about Guerin being his family. He meant what he said, about not looking away. And he meant it every single time he told him he loved him. Because their world was not meant to end with a whimper. If their world is going to end, it’s going to end with a bang, and at this moment, that bang feels sooner rather than later, and yet he cannot pull himself away.

And maybe it was always supposed to be this way, maybe they were supposed to be this broken, bruised, and bloody thing, smashed beyond repair because there is no happy ending for them, even as he swears that Guerin is a miserable liar. And then the alien that Guerin was trying to save calls out to him. And the world he thought he knew tips off its axis. Michael can barely choke out the word mother, isn’t even close to processing a family of his own, before Alex tugs him away. And when the explosion ends and they’re stuck staring at the ruins, he watches Guerin crumble.

And yeah, they probably shouldn’t have let Guerin drive home alone, but he insisted that it was supposed to be this way. That he needed time to think, time to process, time to be alone. And in the end, Alex couldn’t help but respect his wishes. He’s willing to give Guerin his time to process, his time to heal. Because he’s done being selfish. For so long, their relationship had been about what he wanted, what he needed. He was the one who insisted it be kept quiet, he was the one who called the shots, and it ended with them broken and bruised, and Alex saying that some worlds end with a whimper.

This time has to be different. This time if they’re ever going to be anything more that what they are right now, Alex has to start fighting for what he wants, and if he’s going to do that, he has to start letting Guerin call some of the shots, even if that means him pursuing a relationship with someone else, because he’s not stupid. He knows that there’s something happening between the two of them. Maria is his best friend, and Michael is his, he doesn’t know, because soulmate seems far too little, far too insignificant for whatever it is they are. And maybe that’s because if anyone is soulmates, it’s Max and Liz. Those two gravitate towards each other with an ease and an unconscious grace that you can’t help but believe in true love and forever. Max and Liz are like two halves of a whole, one soul separated into two bodies where a person wouldn’t be able to tell where one ended and one began. Max and Liz, they just make sense, in a way that he could never hope to understand.

Him and Guerin though? They’re something else, something cosmic. A supernova rather than a shooting star. A black hole consuming everything in their path. A crash landing of an alien spaceship in the middle of nowhere. A boat caught in the middle of a storm. They’re set to destroy everything in their path, burn it down to ashes and dust after everything they’ve been through, because he’s prepared to set the world on fire if it means that he can protect Michael from whatever it is that’s coming for him, because he has to protect his family with everything he has left. He won’t let them end with a whimper, or with a bang. If he has it his way, he won’t let them end at all, and he will fight until his dying breath for whatever it is they have, whatever it is they could be.

They may be a mess of liquid cocooned in a shell right now, completely dissolved of anything they were before, but they’re knitting themselves back together. giving themselves the strength they need to fly. And so he waits. He waits for what he knows he deserves, what they deserve. And this time, he knows they’ll be worth the wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't hate me?


End file.
